Nubya Garcia is at the forefront of Britain’s youth-led jazz explosion, creating futurist bebop and afro-centric jazz that nods to Rollins and Coltrane while hurtling fearlessly into music’s unwritten future.
Now 88 years old and performing at the top of her game, Portuondo has embarked on her “Last Kiss” world tour. Our TD Ottawa Jazz Festival collaboration with the National Arts Centre Orchestra is her final North American stop.
In an overwhelmingly male-dominated field, masterful drummer Terri Lyne Carrington stands out not only as one of the world’s best, but an unparalleled mentor to all female musicians.
Among Prince’s last collaborators, Toronto’s Donna Grantis wields an impressive axe, smelting Bitches Brew-era jazz fusion with modern funk and metal guitar virtuosity.
Melissa Aldana, who plays tenor sax, is the only female instrumentalist to take first prize in the Thelonius Monk competition’s history. The prestigious event held every year since 1987 launched the careers of jazz artists such as saxophonist Joshua Redman in 1991—a year when Chris Potter was runner-up in third place.
The idea for = Jazz Orchestra started with Jazzfest’s programming team: I pitched Christine Jensen on an all-women big band and Christine said, “No, but I do want to do a gender-equal big band.”
Jane Siberry’s skewed melodies and sensuous experimentalism helped pave the way for Canada’s current generation of art-pop from Austra and Allie X, to Grimes and Bernice.
Judith Hill and her band played Ottawa in 2016, in our After Dark Series, and that was the highlight of the festival for anyone there. When we heard Judith was touring this summer we had to put her on the TD Main Stage. Whoever will come will love it.
Groundbreaking Women Perform at 2019 TD Ottawa Jazz Festival The TD Ottawa Jazz Festival is proud of its tradition of presenting up-and-coming artists such as Diana Krall in the ’90s to established artists and legends like Aretha Franklin, Esperanza Spalding, Tanya Tagaq, Mavis Staples and many more featured over the past 39 years. In putting […]